Who Man Is.
Take Me To Heaven: Part 3
Greetings!
The other night, I had an interesting dream…
In my dream, I found myself as a twelve-year-old boy who had been raised in a Christian household. I was deeply committed to my faith, having experienced a spiritual rebirth as described in John 3. Simply put, I was a devout follower of Jesus Christ. My primary concern was ensuring that every person who needed Christ would find their way to him. And by “everyone who needs Christ,” I meant every single person who has ever taken a breath. In my youthful fervor, I was convinced of this truth beyond a shadow of a doubt.
But before I continue with the dream, I need to say a few things.
Writing about The Doctrine of Man has been a challenging task for me. Perhaps it’s because, as humans, we tend to have a high opinion of ourselves in our flesh. We don’t want to see ourselves as “icky, sticky stink pots,” so to speak. It’s much more appealing and socially acceptable to view ourselves in a positive light, as generally good, self-sufficient, vibrant, and well-adjusted beings who only need to follow our own desires to attain love, joy, and happiness. However, this diluted view of ourselves is not how God sees us.
It’s crucial not to be deceived. There is simply no positive light in which to portray man on his own. I believe this is why I had the dream and why I’m finding it challenging to write about this topic. It’s not easy to confront the truth, especially when it goes against the popular narrative. But it’s essential to acknowledge that we cannot rely on ourselves alone and that we are fundamentally flawed.
Since I was young, I’ve been taught to hold a positive view of myself. The culture I grew up in conditioned me to love myself, to look within, and to find inner peace. I was encouraged to think highly of myself, to strive to live my best life in the present moment. Our culture loves to portray man in a positive, all-inclusive light, and to “tolerate” any view of who man is, as long as it aligns with their self-loving, self-worshiping, truth-denying worldview. We’re told that we’re not all that bad, that we have inherent goodness, and that we only need to believe in ourselves to achieve greatness.
However, this view is not the truth. It’s a diluted perspective that ignores our fundamental flaws and the reality of our sinful nature. The world wants to hold onto a view of man that can be tolerated by their distorted worldview, but the truth is that we are all broken and in need of salvation.
This way of thinking can be dangerous and damaging. It can lead to a false sense of security and even depression. However, once one acknowledges the truth, it can be liberating. Accepting the reality of our sinful nature and need for redemption can lead to a deeper sense of purpose and a closer relationship with God. It’s only when we recognize our flaws that we can fully appreciate the love and grace that God extends to us through Jesus Christ.
And the truth is this…
The truth is that we are all criminals who have violated the high and holy commands of our great and holy creator. Our sinful nature has led us to rebel against God, and we have all fallen short of His glory. It’s only when we recognize the gravity of our situation that we can begin to understand the depth of God’s love and the magnitude of the sacrifice made on our behalf through Jesus Christ. By acknowledging our wrongdoing and turning to God in repentance, we can receive forgiveness and the hope of eternal life.
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Romans 3:23
To understand who we are, we must first understand who God is (which we covered two weeks ago), and what sin is. Sin is not a mild infraction or some trivial disagreement. Our sin is a direct assault on God Himself, a complete rejection of who He is, and everything He created us for. Our sin is vile and completely unacceptable to Him. It was Adam’s disobedience in eating the forbidden fruit that plunged mankind into the desperate depths of depravity.
We were created to glorify God, worship Him, and have fellowship with Him. However, we cannot achieve these things on our own. Our self-centered nature often prevents us from doing so. As John Piper so aptly describes in his book, “Desiring God,” we were created to enjoy God forever by glorifying Him. But because of sin, because of the fall described in Genesis 3, mankind has become what Paul described in his writings to Timothy.
“…lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,”
2 Timothy 3:2-4
we are,
“dead in [our] trespasses and sins…, following the course of this world,”
Ephesians 2:1
And I am making no claim to have been any different!
You see the thing is, if I’m being honest with myself, at the end of the day, I just want people to enjoy reading this blog, but no one wants to read about how rotten they in fact are. In my fear of man, I want to be accepted by man. I want, in my flesh, to think highly of man and to be thought highly of by man. But the truth is, I stink, you stink, we all just………STINK.
But I digress. Lets get back to the dream..
In the dream, I crossed a bridge near my home and attempted to fish in the stream beneath it. However, I noticed that the fish I was trying to catch were dead and floating lifelessly atop the stream. Despite my efforts to catch them with various lures and bait, I couldn’t catch a single fish. The purpose of this illustration is to highlight the deadness of the fish, which represents the condition of man apart from Christ.
Without God, mankind is completely lost and unable to save himself. Like the fish in the illustration, we are floating helplessly along the current of this world, headed toward the edge of a cliff and impending doom. The human condition is one of debasement in mind, with no starting point or ground for sound judgment, thought, logic, or reason without God (Rom 1). This is why many man-centered ideas and religious beliefs run rampant, leading people astray.
There is simply no positive light in which to portray man on his own. We are all in desperate need of God’s saving grace through Jesus Christ. Without Christ, we are incapable of redeeming or saving ourselves. We are lost and deserving of God’s wrath.
The good news is that Jesus Christ offers salvation and redemption to all who turn to Him. By acknowledging our sinfulness and turning to Him in faith, we can receive forgiveness and eternal life. Next week, I will be writing about our Savior, Jesus Christ, and the hope that He offers to all who believe in Him.
In Him, with love,
mike
P.s. I am so glad to have made it through the doctrine of man. Thank you so much for reading this blog and for getting through this post…I am mostly excited to get to the next part of the gospel. The best part of the gospel. The gospel. Jesus Christ and who he is and what he has done! I am so excited to get to the greatest word in all of scripture, the coordinating conjunction, in all its glory, without which we would all be lost, the word….. BUT ……..See you next week as we dive into “Who Christ is”.
